Direction: Lance Hammer
Country: UK
Director Lance Hammer’s sophomore feature, Queen at Sea, arrives 18 years after his debut, Ballast (2008). It’s a powerful drama that opens up discussion around a sensitive and complex subject, and went on to win the Jury Prize at the 2026 Berlinale.
Tenured university professor and single mother Amanda Powell (Juliette Binoche) becomes visibly disturbed when she arrives in London to check on her mother, whose dementia is progressively worsening (Anna Calder-Marshall). She catches her lucid stepfather (Tom Courtenay) in the act of having sex with her mother, despite contrary medical advice. Was it consensual? Acting on impulse, she calls the police. What follows is a turmoil of emotions, regrets, and realizations. In a parallel thread, the camera also follows Amanda’s teenage daughter (Florence Hunt), who is discovering sex for the first time, creating a bittersweet dichotomy between the beginning and the final stages of life.
Effectively shot, the film is imbued with close-ups that seek emotional candor while exploring themes of aging, cognitive decline, family caregiving, and the coldness of institutional bureaucracy. Heartfelt, profound, and acute in its observations, Queen at Sea is a film to admire and be moved by. The actors deliver exceptionally strong performances, guided by Hammer with a keen eye for the intense vulnerability underlying this emotionally demanding material. He brings his story to a close with both radiance and devastation.
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